Host, visitor hope for good impression

August 26, 2007

She is quick to tell me that the cleaning started before I arrived. “I cleaned the bathroom and the entire apartment,” my daughter boasts. “Just for you.” I am flattered that she would do this, but I hope my arrival from home feels more like a friendly visit than a formal inspection. She is showing off her first New York apartment in a building that from the outside looks exactly like the tenement it used to be. On the inside, it is refurbished nicely so it can now rent for more than my mortgage. Hence, the roommates. My daughter is concerned that her apartment makes a good impression - and so must I. The admonitions start before I even leave. They are like warning labels on an explosive device. There are things I can't do while I am visiting - or else they will set her off. The warnings aren't that explicit, of course, but the meaning is clear. Most of all, I'm not to criticize her roommates. I mustn't complain if they came home really late or if their friends came over for a drink. Honestly, I want to protest, I haven't disciplined another mother's child since second grade. “At least you won't be here on a Saturday night,” my daughter observes - as if such mayhem might be entirely too much for my old lady sensibilities. I am a country mouse coming from the sensible suburbs to visit our 21-year-old in the wicked city. “Some- body did the dishes,” my daughter observes in happy amazement my first morning. This leaves me to wonder what dire warnings she issued to her roommates about me. It is an apartment with paper plates stacked inside the cabinets where the dishes would go. There is hardly a thing to eat, and it screams of New York single women who rarely cook in their kitchen. It seems perfect. For several days, my daughter leads and I follow. I follow her in and out of subways, uptown and downtown, across neighborhoods. We eat at restaurants that spill out into the streets where people are always, always walking. We rush to Times Square one afternoon to put our names in the lottery to buy the cheap tickets to a Broadway show. “I've never won anything,” I confide in my daughter, just seconds before they call my name. We saunter to the front row center like ingŽnues in an MGM musical. We can't help but grin at each other as the theater weaves its spell. We spend another afternoon primping for a fancy dinner with her boyfriend. She lets her curls run riot, while she irons mine flat. We are two women out on the town, and hailing a cab we look mighty fine. “I feel like a 2-year-old,” my daughter wails later. “I don't want you to leave.” I know better. Family visits, like a 4-year-old's birthday party, should end early and on a high note. It is not until my last night that I even meet the roommates. We chat cordially, innocuously, in the kitchen and I smile at everything. “You can use the bathroom first,” my daughter offers, and I take the hint. Smiling even more, I excuse myself. Did I mention the bathroom is spotless? Teryl Zarnow writes about families for the Orange County Register and is the mother of three children, two boys and a girl. Write to her at The Orange County Register, P.O. Box 11626, Santa Ana, CA 92711. Or e-mail her at familywriter@aol.com.